Ross Fisher, two days after wondering if he was too tired to compete in the European Open, produced the lowest round of his Tour career. The 27-year-old from Surrey, whose biggest impact previously this season was to blow a chance to beat Phil Mickelson with a closing double-bogey seven in Shanghai last November, broke the course record at the Kent club with a nine-under-par 63.

"It's a little bit surreal," said Fisher, who despite the windy conditions finished with six successive birdies to leave some of the biggest names on the circuit trailing in his wake. He leads by two shots from Graeme McDowell. "It's probably the best, most solid round of golf I've played and on the front nine [he began on the 10th] the hole was as big as a bucket," he added.

Winner of his first Tour title in Holland last August, Fisher came through the 36-hole Open qualifier at Sunningdale on Monday and discussed with his manager how much he had left in the tank for this week. Asked if he considered pulling out, he replied: "I sort of had a thought about it. I was feeling pretty tired but how do you pull out of an event when you live only 40 minutes away?

"It's pretty difficult to sit at home and watch it on TV, knowing that you are playing well. So I thought, 'Let's see how we go.' Have a few days off and, if I feel fine, I'll play." He took his wife, Joanne, to Wimbledon for her birthday on Tuesday, left his caddie to walk the Kent course and then attacked it "blind" first thing yesterday morning.

While six players were chosen at random for testing on the first day of golf's new anti-doping era, Fisher kicked off with two birdies, did not have to wait long for two more and, after bogeying the short 17th, covered his inward half in 30. That included sinking a bunker shot on the 187-yard 7th and hitting a massive drive on the dog-leg 448-yard 9th that, to his disbelief, came up a mere 20 yards short of the green.

The defending champion, Colin Montgomerie, finished with a 70. Montgomerie was disappointed he could not build on being three under after eight holes - two shots into bunkers cost him bogeys after that - but he still had a better day than the Open champion, Padraig Harrington. Recovering from a stiff neck, the Dubliner returned a level-par 72 and will need a vast improvement if his last Tour outing before his Open defence at Royal Birkdale is to bring him his first victory since Carnoustie.